chequered
by sarakirai
Summary: The end is always the same. [In which everyone is an internet chess avatar, and Wakamatsu happens to have a consciousness.]


**chequered**

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**A/N:**

I was honestly intending to work on the next parts of my multichap fics, but this insisted on being written. It's rather different from what I usually churn out (and vague in places), so I hope you guys like it, really. Any questions or what, feel free to drop a review or pm me c:

Disclaimer: I do not own GSNK

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He takes his position on the board.

The flagstones are a majestic sprawl beneath his feet, as always. Neatly juxtaposed squares of black and white marble, veined with the threads of rarer green and gold and rust-red that he follows with his eyes as he walks over to where he's supposed to stand. It's early and the air is still cold, sun partially obscured by the muggy clouds. It washes the whole place in a warm sort of grey.

White on right, he reminds himself, white on right. It won't do to get this wrong. He's approaching from the left, making his way along the perimeter to the middle two squares. On his right will be the rook, the knight, the bishop – a set of three flanking both him and the one by his side, all of them fronted by a neat row of identical pawns, faceless and nameless creatures expressly manufactured for use here. Replaceable things – Wakamatsu's glad he's not one of them.

He vaguely recalls that he hasn't had breakfast yet, that he'd just washed his face and brushed his teeth before yanking on articles of clothing and escaping the living quarters. At the back of his mind, he also vaguely recalls that he does not need breakfast. It is quiet, peaceful, and he can breathe at ease for a while, watching and waiting for the rest to trickle onto the chequered expanse of their day, the same start as yesterday and tomorrow, as always.

The marble thrums under the soles of his shoes, almost alive.

Wakamatsu nods at Kashima when she emerges, in the now stronger sunlight of the morning, to stand next to him. The balmy air carries the scent of spicy cologne and the sound of admiring screams over, nothing new. The white queen is more suited to be the king, really, or a prince at least, with her sculpted nose and graceful bows and way with words – but definitely more than a little strange, seeing as how she doesn't really pay attention to the gender binary, and is forever bestowing favours on the wrong coloured knight. She's waving at him now, in fact, though the black knight always scowls at her impressively, compact form tensing.

He stands rooted to the marble beneath him, and the warm layers of flesh and blood and nerve endings tingle against the cold, solid depths of stone. For most of the game, he isn't usually required to move – as the tallest piece in the game, he just stands and watches. Watches as those around him are sent forth to engage with those on the other side, to meet their triumph or their ignominious doom.

One space is all the width he's allowed to stride at any one time, in any one direction. He has long legs that itch to walk, sometimes, but it's been so long he's gotten used to standing still, holding his chin up to match with Kashima's regal posture. When things get too dull, they both slouch, or practice yoga poses, though the queen pieces are usually occupied with running all over the board. It gets a little lonely.

Still, it's interesting to look at the rest of them.

The rooks especially are a quirky bunch, the four of them sharing some sort of bond that they refuse to tell anyone about or even acknowledge the existence of – but it's still there, all the same. Nozaki, Miyako, Maeno, and Miyamae invariably take up posts on the corners of the grid. Unlike the others, they don't particularly care which side of the board they stand on, or what colour square they stand on, or even who stands next to them. No headaches, no heartaches over which to pick; left or right, black or white. It makes no difference, since corner to corner is far away enough from Maeno for the other three no matter what; and they're strangely oblivious to people like Sakura and Ryousuke who couldn't be more grateful that they get the chance to be near the rooks simply because they were assigned to be bishops. Perhaps it's deliberate.

Their very expressions are deliberate – smiles that are ingratiating; or ones that radiate innocent ignorance; blank masks of impassivity; perpetual grim-faced irritation with the world.

The rooks play by the rules of the game, of course, because it is dictated, but from the small details Wakamatsu notices (the quirk of a smile, the quickness of an exhalation) he can tell that they have their own private set of rules: in which Maeno tries to get as close to them as many times as possible during play, and they try to stay as far away as they can in turn.

In any case it's a team effort of sorts – not like him. Alone; he's alone for the most part, even though he's practically surrounded by pieces, people, and bodies.

Depends on how the game progresses.

Sakura and Mikoshiba work well as bishops, covering for each other. They're stuck on one colour respectively, black or white, for the entirety of the game (and the entirety of all their games, since he's never seen them swap spots even once). They move in diagonals, only diagonals – and they make it look so natural to fixed in that one single way of movement, mirroring the one-way track of their minds when they focus on the flow of play, instead of on Nozaki or collectible figurines.

The pawns fall in battle, as is their fate. Everyone dances around in pre-set paths, a choreography of organised chaos. Wakamatsu waits in his place, corner of his eye straining to catch glimpses of amber in the air, winking in the sunlight; tendrils of lank brown-green that curl him around her little finger. He blinks.

Black queen and white king face each other, stare each other down.

Whenever it gets to this point, he wills time to slow down, tries to stare into Mayu's eyes over Seo's shoulder, his counterpart cornered by Kashima across the wide expanse of marble; Kashima, who's ended up rousing the ire of Hori, making sure that he lives up to his label of black knight. Wakamatsu already knows how things are going to end, because that never changes. This deep-seated urge for variation hardly makes sense, but he privately acts on it, in the sacrosanct chamber of his heart. His hopes seem so inviolable, somehow.

When Seo finishes wiping off the last of the other pieces, it is only then that she finally approaches him, signalling the end of this whole farce of power play. He could care less, he thinks, about her, but he could also care more. When she steps up, as close as possible to him before she strikes the killing blow (he can see the blood under her nails), when she leans forward and grins at him – the alternate scenarios multiply in his head, echo throughout his consciousness before everything goes black and he's spirited back to his room. When she leans forward and grins at him – he's a soldier crumpled against a tree, smoke rising in the background as she queries about his injuries; he's curled behind the bars of a cell and she's about to hand him a lit cigarette; he's a schoolboy on the rooftop being teased by a senior girl; he's an ordinary man waking up on someone's couch, head angled up to receive a good morning kiss –

The end is always the same.

"_Checkmate."_

And then his vision fizzles out, clear lines and colours collapsing into a grainy mess of black and white squares, tinier than the ones beneath his feet and a thousand times more pervasive.

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His eyes flutter open, still the same Caribbean blue they were before. He can't move yet, but he can flick his eyes about and be sure that this is his room, his own little space in this world. It'll take a few long hours before he's sufficiently restored to full form, full strength. Time to recuperate in the privacy of his quarters, in the dark where he won't have to see the regenerating pixels of his skin (no flesh, certainly, no blood, no bones, no nerve endings); time granted for him to savour everything his senses took note of today; time for him to dwell fondly on memories of past games and ever-present faces.

Or at least, that's what he tells himself.

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Wakamatsu wakes up normally the next morning; goes through the routine of wash, brush, dress, before stepping outside.

He takes his position on the board.

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End file.
